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Martin Luther Gene tells of his day at work.
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Just one of the past due accounts on my “list”, not even for all that much money. As soon as I got past telling this woman who I was and why I was calling I paused intentionally as always to get a reaction.

“Well let me tell you what the situation is…” She paused, took a deep breath and continuied. “My father passed away recently. He died accidently, I don’t mean he died in like a car accident or fell down, he died as a result of a defective butane lighter that exploded in his face!”. “This is one of the first times I’ve been able to talk about it without breaking up…” and talk about it she did.

To sum it up, her father lived alone in a secluded area and after the lighter blew up in his face it started a fire that he evidently put out with his bare hands. It was 3 days before his body was found. She said there was burnt skin stuck to the wall near where he collapsed. “…and you could see the the stains on the carpet where his body fluids leaked!”. There was a lot more about problems with the insurance companies and the county required “clean up” before the property can be lived in or sold. I just let her go on. It was far more entertaining than any other call I would make.

So when her voice started getting shaky, and she said “I just don’t know what to do, or where to start!”, I said “how about I just fax you a copy of the invoice so you don’t have to look for the original?”. She thought that was a good idea.

The MoD will soon have decide on whom to choose for their new Refuelling Aircrafts. The same ‘competition’ ran in the US recently where Boeing’s already proven 767 were chosen over Airbus’ A330s, which have yet to be used as Tanker Aircrafts. I mean, this was after it was stopped. Originally it wasn’t a competition, the US had ‘already’ chosen Boeing. Then EADS protested (Airbus’ owners) and it was opened up. Boeing won anyway. EADS might as well have saved them that paperwork.

One major difference is that Boeing will supply used 767 that will be converted to Tanker Aircrafts, whereas Airbus will supply the A330s straight of the production line in Toulouse. We’re talking about a 27 year contract worth approximately Â£13 billion pounds sterling (US $20 billion). Technically if Airbus were able to build a Tanker version of their very popular A330 model, it would be able to carry a lot more fuel than Boeing’s conversion due to its bigger fuselage size.

One issue that news reports covering this area fail to see, is the fact that this is by no means a choice to be made entirely from technological point of view. By choosing an American product over a European the UK deepens its dependence on the US Military Industrial Complex (Sounds good eh?), whereas an Airbus choice would keep the money and the work in Europe, without depending on the US.

Unfortunately that’s not exactly true, since many parts (MANY) in Airbus’ Aircrafts are produced in the US. Airbus and Lochheed have even talked about opening up a production line of single aisle aircrafts in the US to attract more US customers.

The same discussion is as valid when it comes to the F35 in competition with the Eurofigther, or the US controlled GPS system which is being challenged by European Equivalent.

In other but very closely related news, Boeing is about to challenge EADS on the fact that they have received Government support (Especially from France and Germany), which is said to have helped them in gaining customers. The same could of course be said about the US Defence System choosing Boeing over Airbus, as a way of helping Boeing out of a steep decline in Aircraft orders.

Dark Night turned to sunny morning before I knew it. 6 am. oh! But 6am means fresh, delicious donuts just being put on the shelves at Basha’s, the finest donuts around here.
I got there at 6.03 am, salivating, waiting for fresh donut air to hit me, god good, is there anything better than a good donut?
But as I got closer I could see far too much of the stainless steel shelves, no warm, glowing hues of sprinkles, icing, glaze.
No donuts! No Bear Claws! nothing! I looked back into the bakery kitchen hoping to catch sight of huge laden trays being ready for ME, but no. NO! A worker saw me with clenched fists ready to bust up the cases and said in broken english “They all go wrong, we make again”. WHEN! ? When will there be donuts?” she just shrugged and said “there ees thee day old”.
Day old donuts. Like being the last man on a gang bang, no way. So I bought some Entemanns assortment box donuts and they aren’t too bad but Goddamn it!

There are a numberofreports indicating Saddam Hussein may have extraterrestrial allies. These reports seem to originate with a UFO sighting over Baghdad in December 1998, when a triangular pattern of lights flew over the city. The lights were described as similar to the Phoenix Lights seen in 1997. A number of UFO experts (and one or two Art Bell callers) assert that this 1998 sighting was the Iraqi equivalent of the Roswell crash, and that Iraqi scientists are busy reverse engineering the alien technology.Continue reading →

Every now and then, someone sees one of the mouth watering graphics on alienjesus.com and thinks to themselves, “hey, that would make a great image for me to use!” And that’s fine. The internet is the home shoplifting network, and we don’t mind giving back now and then. But if you’re going to lift an image, find someplace else to host it. Just ask German Limp Bizkit fan BiZkit EYeZ. He borrowed a picture of Fred Durst from one of Ed Oateswulf’s older articles and used it as his avatar for some German Limp Bizkit fan board. I imagine he’ll be a bit upset when he finds his avatar image has mutated fromthis: into this: .

Religion has always been a core component of conflicts in the Middle East, and the current war in Iraq is no exception. When discussing the confluence of religion, politics, and war, the big networks tend to tread lightly. Boring! Some of the most interesting discussion takes place in the so-called “Christian” media. And in Christian media, it doesn’t get much bigger than Pat Robertson’s 700 Club. Here’s my take on the Friday (3/28/03) edition of The 700 Club.A streaming version of the show is available here.Continue reading →